Pages

Translate

Saturday, January 14, 2006

New York - March 1956 - Bone defects, anemia and earlier female menstruation occur more often in children dosed with sodium fluoride-laced drinking water, according to an unprecedented human cavity-prevention experiment conducted upon the population of Newburgh, New York, reported in the March 1956 Journal of the American Dental Association. This is the first research into ingested fluoride's effects to the body and not just the teeth.

Brown and yellow discolored, but decay resistant, teeth are prevalent in populations drinking and irrigating their crops with naturally calcium-fluoridated water. Public health officials wondered if sodium fluoride injected in small doses into “fluoride-deficient” water supplies, then ingested by children and incorporated into their developing teeth, would prevent cavities without endangering their health or mottling their teeth, now called dental fluorosis.

So, ten years ago Newburgh’s faucets began spouting 1.2 parts per million (ppm) sodium fluoride. Nearby Kingston, New York, the control city for comparison purposes, was left fluoride-free. Kingston and Newburgh are thirty-five miles apart on the Hudson River and have 1940 populations of 31,956 and 28,817, respectively. In Newburgh, 500 children were examined after ten years and 405 in Kingston. Adults were never tested.

Due to political pressure, the Newburgh/Kingston study was declared a success five years ago before these ill health effects were found. As a result, many U.S. cities started fluoridation believing it is safe and effective.

Sodium fluoride ingestion is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is on the market as a rat poison. Once any drug is on the market for any reason, doctors are allowed to prescribe it for other diseases. Hence, many physicians and dentists are “off-labeling” sodium fluoride as a cavity preventive for children who don’t drink fluoridated water supplies, of course, in much smaller doses than needed to kill rats.

Newburgh's children were given complete physicals and x-rays, over the course of the study, from birth to age nine in the first year and up to age eighteen in the final year. “(R)outine laboratory studies were omitted in the control group during most of the study, they were included in the final examination,” according to Schlesinger and colleagues, in “Newburgh-Kingston caries-fluorine study XIII. Pediatric findings after ten years.”

The researchers also report:

“The average age at the menarche was 12 years among the girls studied in Newburgh and 12 years 5 months among the girls in Kingston.”

Hemoglobin (iron-containing part of a red blood cell): “a few more children in the range below 12.9 grams per hundred milliliters in Newburgh”

“…a slightly higher proportion of children in Newburgh were found to have a total erythrocyte (red blood cell) count below 4,400,000 per milliliter”

Knee X-rays of Newburgh children reveals more cortical bone defects, and irregular mineralization of the thigh bone.

Only twenty-five Newburgh children had eye and ear exams. Two have apparent hearing loss. Eight have abnormal vision. Even though researchers discovered more adult cataracts in surveys conducted before 1944 in communities with naturally high water fluoride concentrations (1)Newburg and Kingston adults were never checked for this defect.

Only two groups of twelve-year-old boys were tested for fluoride’s toxic kidney effects.

--------------------------------------------------

The above is a report of the 1956 Newburgh/Kingston fluoridation study as it should have been reported.

It’s the reference that’s still used today to substantiate claims that fluoridation is safe for everyone. No other comprehensive health study of water fluoridation has ever been conducted to the best of my knowledge.

The 2004 book "The Fluoride Deception," by Christopher Bryson, reveals that in addition to NYS Dep't of Health examinations “the University of Rochester conducted its own studies, measuring how much fluoride Newburgh citizens retained in their blood and tissues. Health Department personnel cooperated, shipping blood and placenta samples to the Rochester scientists,” writes Bryson. Three times as much fluoride was found in the placentas and blood samples gathered from Newburgh as from non-fluoridated Rochester, reports Bryson.

Following back the scientific references in all current fluoridation safety literature will invariably lead back to the Newburgh/Kingston study which actually failed to prove fluoridation is safe for all who drink it.

After sixty years of fluoridation fed to over 2/3 of Americans, the U.S. Surgeon General reports, tooth decay is a silent epidemic.

However, dental fluorosis is occuring across the land instead of just in isolated communities, affecting upwards of 42% of American schoolchildren, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Reference:(1) Fluoridation researcher, Peter Meiers, has more information about the Newburgh/Kingston study on his website:

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Research shows that fluoride (the decay-preventative added to water and dental products) can make people sick; but improved diet and complete fluoride withdrawal can relieve symptoms.(a)

Fluoride’s harmful health effects, except to teeth, are rarely studied in the U.S. and, in fact, are often discouraged(b).

In areas of India, where food and water are naturally fluoride-abundant, severe fluoride toxicity is common and manifests as debilitating and disfiguring diseases(d). Well-known is that fluoride excess irreversibly cripples bones and crumbles teeth (skeletal and dental fluorosis, respectively).

Lesser-known is that early fluorosis warning signs, or soft tissue toxicity, are reversible with a diet adequate in calcium, vitamins C, E, other antioxidants and withdrawal of all fluoride sources (the intervention), report researchers Madhu Bhatnager and Professor (Dr.) A.K. Susheela, the CEO and Director of India’s Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation.

“It is now an established fact that fluoride ingestion over a period of time can affect the structure and function of cells, tissues, organs and systems resulting in a variety of clinical manifestations," writes Dr. Susheela who researches fluoride extensively . The following symptoms can occur even from fluoride consumption at the low level added to most US water supplies.

1) aches and pain in the joints, i.e. neck, back, hip, shoulder and knee without visible signs of fluid accumulation

2) non-ulcer dyspepsia such as nausea, vomiting, pain in the stomach, bloated feeling or gas formation in the stomach, constipation followed by diarrhea

3) polyuria (frequent urination) and polydipsia (excessive thirst)

4) muscle weakness, fatigue, anemia with low hemoglobin level

5) complaints of repeated abortions/still birth

6) complaints of male infertility with abnormality in sperm morphology, oligospermia (spermatozoa deficiency in the semen), azoospermia (spermatozoa absence in the semen) and low testosterone levels.”

Susheela and Bhatnager recommend physicians consider fluoride toxicity for the above-listed patient complaints and/or any loss of shine or discoloration in the patient’s front row of teeth, which may be due to dental fluorosis.

“Pediatricians need to be educated about fluorosis. Perhaps water fluoridation and indiscriminate promotion of fluoridated dental products in the name of prevention of dental caries (cavities) need to be reviewed,” writes Susheela and Bhatnager

U.S. studies show American children are fluoride saturated, ruining their teeth with dental fluorosis; yet cavity rates are rising (1-8). These children should be studied for fluoride’s other adverse health effects and correlated to essential nutrient consumption and cavities.

Also never studied, incredibly, are the most widely-used artificial fluoride chemicals Americans drink daily - silicofluorides (j), derived from fertilizers, purposely added to water supplies, at about 1 milligram fluoride per quart of water, in an attempt to reduce tooth decay. Recent published studies indicate that children who live in silico-fluoridated communities have higher blood lead levels than children who live in sodium fluoridated or non-fluoridated communities (k).

Ironically, higher blood lead levels are also linked to higher rates of tooth decay (L) and are associated with higher rates of diseases and behavioral problems (including hyperactivity, substance abuse, and violent crime).

Fluoride is neither a nutrient nor essential to health. Fluoride deficiency does not lead to tooth decay. Poor diet causes cavities and fluoride can’t fix a poor diet.

Fluoride has been linked to many other health problems such as thyroid dysfunction, bone fractures, lowered IQ, allergic and intolerant effects and more.

(i) March 1999 Journal of the American Dental Association “Fluorosis of the primary dentition: what does it mean for permanent teeth?” by Warren JJ, Kanellis MJ, Levy SM http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10085657&dopt=Abstract

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Fluoridation was adopted more by politicking than by science according to Edward Groth III, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, with Consumers Union, publishers of the popular Consumers Reports magazine.

In a presentation made at the February 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Groth reported that, with three experimental fluoridation trials incomplete, enthusiastic fluoridation proponents successfully lobbied and persuaded the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) to endorse fluoridation in 1950 who, then with a few state dental officials, began vigorously promoting fluoridation with little, if any, scientific support.

According to Groth, whose 1973 Stanford University doctoral dissertation partially evaluated the use of scientific information in fluoridation policy-making. “There were no significant studies examining the long-term health of people in communities with naturally fluoridated water. .. (However,) exposure via drinking water, at levels not much higher than what was proposed for fluoridation, had been associated in numerous published studies, beginning around 1940, with serious adverse skeletal and neuromuscular effects, in India and other countries. Opposition to fluoridation initially came from scientists concerned about the lack of good evidence on possible health risks,” writes Groth

In order to get fluoridation passed, proponents often belittled opponents and used slick public relations schemes, while refusing to debate the issue, to get fluoridation accepted, reports Groth. Something they still do today

Said Groth, “Those who did openly oppose fluoridation were often subject of personal attack and professional reprisals. For decades, mainstream scientific journals would reject for publication any paper that did not articulate a strictly pro-fluoridation position on risk and benefit questions.”

“I myself had three manuscripts based on my doctoral dissertation rejected by U.S. public health journals in the 1970s,” says Groth. “My reviews of the evidence on risks and benefits of fluoridation were sent to anonymous pro-fluoridation referees, who found them “biased.” One editor advised that he wished to do nothing that might offer anti-fluoridationists any political leverage...(However,) I was politically outside the fray; my interest was exploring the interplay between political controversy and interpretations of scientific data. My papers were still rejected by several leading American journals in the 1970s, I believe because of a pervasive bias in favor of defending and promoting fluoridation,” writes Groth.

Groth reports of the early days of fluoridation, “ Leading PHS dental researchers lobbied every leading scientific organization, to gain endorsements of fluoridation. They cast fluoridation as a product of scientific progress under siege from anti-scientific forces, and rallied the scientific community in political support of the measure. They carried out a few studies looking for possible adverse effects of fluoridation; the studies were poorly designed and inconclusive, by today’s standards, but they found no convincing evidence of harm. The PHS declared the issues closed, the debate over. The studies were roundly criticized as inadequate and biased by leading opponents of the day but fluoridation advocates rapidly took the stance that there was no longer any scientific doubt that fluoridation was safe and effective. Their political strategy was simply to steamroll the opposition, to insist that opponents had no basis for any valid objections. They focused on political campaigning, not on research; in fact, research all but halted, as it was politically inexpedient for the PHS to be studying questions they had already declared adequately answered.”

Times haven’t changed much from the early days of fluoridation as Groth reports it. Dentists still denigrate the opposition, fund huge billboards, radio and TV spots, newspaper ads, and brochures to influence Americans to vote for fluoridation. Organized dentistry often uses their clout to censor fluoridation opponent information from reaching the media, even when it is accurate, while refusing to publicly debate the issue knowing the media likes a controversy and mostly ignores opponents otherwise.

At the same time, some dentists admit the benefits vs. the risks of fluoridation is a legitimate scientific controversy. Fluoridation may be immoral and outdated argues David Locker, BDS, PhD, professor and director of the Community Dental Health Services Research Unit, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto in the November 2001, Journal of the Canadian Dental Association (http://www.cda-adc.ca/jcda/vol-67/issue-10/eng/578.html ).

And in a new devious twist, the American Dental Association, acting like teenage hackers, bought the domain name “www.fluoridealert.com” and “www.fluoridealert.net” to deceive web surfers away from fluoridation opponents’ website, http://www.fluoridealert.org , the website of the Fluoride Action Network, an international coalition of organizations opposed to fluoridation. Instead, with a slip of a “dot com,” unsuspecting web surfers are tricked to the American Dental Association’s pro-fluoridation information.

Why would dentists do such a thing? Dentistry was a maligned profession before fluoridation gave it respectability. And fluoridation birthed the National Institutes of Dental Research. Fluoridation gives organized dentistry political power as well as millions of federal tax dollars to study fluoride’s effects in humans. Many dentists are stuck in their old-time beliefs and haven’t actually read the literature themselves. Those that do often switch sides.

“Fluoridation campaigns provide a unique opportunity for dentistry to help reduce the incidence of dental disease while establishing political viability...,” according to the Journal of the American Dental Association, “Fluoridation Election Victory: A Case Study for Dentistry in Effective Political Action,” April 1981.

Also, there’s an interesting “marriage” between organized dentistry and fluoride manufacturers who fund dental journals, dental schools, research, awards, symposiums and dental meetings, buy equipment, and do much more for dentists and their organizations.

Dentists censor negative fluoride information whenever they are able to. They discourage newspapers from using fluoridation opponent letters (See http://www.mtn.org/~newscncl/determinations/det_24.html ), encourage internet news services to shut-off fluoridation opponents information (See Fluoridation and Censorship:
http://www.chirojournal.com/newsletter.php?nl=136896&ar=3128 ) while ignoring the misinformation disseminated by their own profession about fluoride and fluoridation on the internet and elsewhere.

A 1999 dental textbook, “Dentist, Dental Practice, and the Community,” by prominent researchers and dental university professors, Burt and Eklund, reports that Groth’s assessment is correct even today - that fluoridation is based more on unproved theories than scientific evidence.

END

Groth’s entire presentation can be found here: http://www.consumersunion.org/food/debate/bio1.htm
page one is at http://www.consumersunion.org/food/debate/bio.htm